Volume XC, Number 13 March 21, 2014 Worcester, Massachusetts

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Inside The CrusaderNews.......................1Opinions.................5Features..................9Eggplant................12Sports.....................13

Read about the admissions process at HC

Admissions commit-tee solidifies accepted students for the class

of 2018.

Page 3

Students pro-vide opposing views on the

minimum wage

See pictures from wreath-

laying ceremony

Page 5

Women’s and men’s bas-

ketball teams finish with

commendable seasons

Page 13

Students debate the history and significance of the minimum wage

Ceremony Commemo-rates 50th Anniversary of the Death of Fr. Joseph O’Callahan,

S.J.

Page 3

College Announces Jon Favreau, ‘03, as 2014 Commencement Speaker

Margaret Freije Named Dean and Vice President for Academic Affairs

Kevin Deehan Chief News Editor

Last week, the College announced that Jon Favreau, ’03, the former di-rector of speechwriting for President Barack Obama, will give this year’s address at the Class of 2014 Com-mencement Ceremonies. He was the valedictorian of the Class of 2003—and is now returning to the com-mencement stage only eleven years later. The accomplished 32-year-old Holy Cross graduate, as well as Rev. John W. Padberg, S.J. and Rochelle M. Bard, ’98, will receive an honor-ary degree at the event this upcom-ing May. “It is exciting to have such a young commencement speaker who has accomplished so many great things after graduating from Holy Cross. It shows us seniors that it’s not quanti-ty, but quality,” said Carmen Alvarez, ’14, one of the many seniors excited by the announcement. Favreau is a Massachusetts native who double-majored in sociology and political science at Holy Cross.

During his time as a student, Favreau was a member of the College Honors Program, a Dana Schol-ar, treasurer o f C o l l e g e Democrats, an intern working in the office of t h e n - S e n -ator Kerry through the Washington S e m e s t e r P r o g r a m , as well as O p i n i o n s editor of The Crusader. Following graduation, Favreau be-gan work-ing for John K e r r y ’ s 2004 presi-dential cam-paign. Favreau was quickly promoted

to deputy speechwriter. Through this position, he met his future employ-

er, Barack Obama, at the 2004 Democratic N a t i o n a l Convention. After the Kerry cam-paign, Fa-vreau began working in Washington as a staffer for then-S e n a t o r O b a m a . Starting in 2007, Fa-vreau was n a m e d the chief s p e e c h -writer of O b a m a ’ s 2008 presi-dential cam-

paign—only four years after gradu-

ating from Holy Cross. The young alum followed Obama all the way to the White House, where he was named director of speechwriting in 2009. In 2013, Favreau, at the age of 31, decided to leave his White House career in speechwriting to pursue a career in screenwriting. While he is developing a screenplay about his time in Washington, Favreau is work-ing as a communications consultant at the firm he co-founded, Fenway Strategies. Having led such an acclaimed ca-reer, Favreau has garnered several ac-colades throughout the span of his short—but still promising—career. Time magazine named him to their list of “100 Most Influential People in the World.” Favreau also received high praise from GQ by being ranked 33rd in their list of “50 Most Power-ful People in DC.” In his 2003 Valedictory speech, Fa-vreau talked about his aspirations to succeed in Washington and the

See FAVREAu, page 3

Megan Izzo News Co-Editor

Following an extensive na-tional search, Margaret N. Freije, Ph.D., has been named vice president for academic af-fairs and dean of the College of the Holy Cross. Rev. Philip L. Boroughs, S.J., president, announced her appointment on March 7 via a campus-wide email. “I am delighted that Marga-ret has assumed this critically important post at Holy Cross,” said Fr. Boroughs. “I am con-fident—and the Search Com-mittee concurred—that she has the skills, background and experience needed to move the College forward. Her admin-istrative experience, teaching excellence, academic accom-plishments, and scholarship add up to the right fit for Holy Cross today and in the future. Her deep understanding of and commitment to our Jesuit mission and Catholic identity will provide the leadership to propel us for-ward.” Freije is the first woman to hold

this top academic post at the Col-lege. Prior to formally assuming the position last week, she served as interim vice president and dean since July of 2013, when her prede-cessor, Timothy R. Austin, stepped down to pursue an opportunity as provost of Duquesne University.

Following her appointment, she will continue to provide leadership and day-to-day management for all facets of Holy Cross academic life. “I was delighted when Fr. Bor-oughs offered me the position be-cause it gives me the opportunity to work with faculty, students, staff

and administrators to ensure that we continue to offer a Je-suit liberal arts education of the highest caliber,” said Freije. “I am looking forward to the many ways we might expand our support for faculty and student research, introduce new courses and new ways of teaching into the curriculum, and provide additional oppor-tunities to prepare students to live a successful and meaning-ful life after Holy Cross.” Freije is a 1980 graduate of Boston College, where she earned her bachelor’s degree in mathemat-ics. She then attended Brown University, graduating in 1986 with a Ph.D. in mathematics. She arrived at Holy Cross in the fall of 1986. Prior to her appointment as interim dean, Freije served as Associate Dean of the College from 2004 to 2013, including as acting registrar in 2005, and

was responsible for oversight of the curriculum, student academic support, and various academic programs, including study abroad

See FREIJE, page 3

Courtesy of Holy CrossHC alum Jon Favreau will serve as the com-mencement speaker for this spring’s Class of

2014 graduation ceremonies.

Courtesy of Holy CrossMargaret N. Freije, Ph.D., has been named vice president for academic affairs and dean of the College of the Holy Cross. She is the first woman to hold this position

in Holy Cross history.

Charlotte Errity, Elizabeth O’Brien Co-Editors-in-ChiefKevin Deehan, Evan Grogan, Megan Izzo, Kelsey Littlefi eld News EditorsVictoria Fritz, Garrett Bych, Johnathan Thompson, Julie Booth Opinion EditorsMaggie Walsh, Hannah Shaw, Stefanie Schefter, Natalie Correa Features EditorsJohn Morton, Patrick Buscone, Emily Iannoconi Sports EditorsBrendan Higgins Eggplant Editor Jonah Choe, Kyle Hughes Web EditorsColleen Paddock Photography EditorMegan Izzo, Trey Altieri Copy EditorsRachel Franchella, Julia Levesque, Emily Watson, Paige Tortorelli Publicity ManagersLucas Keefer Business ManagerLauren Biolsi Advertising ManagerProfessor Steve Vineberg Faculty AdvisorDean Jacqueline Peterson Faculty Advisor

2 � e Crusader NEWS March 21, 2014

The Crusader student newspaper College of the Holy Cross Published weekly since 1925

Please address correspondence to: The Crusader P.O Box 32A College of the Holy Cross 1 College Street Worcester, MA 01610-2395

The Crusader is a non-profi t, non-partisan, student publication of the College of the Holy Cross.

The Crusader is distributed free of charge to all students, faculty, staff, and employees of the institution.

The Crusader welcomes letters and op-eds from its readers. Please include your name, address, telephone number, and e-mail address. No submissions will be printed anonymously. All submissions may be edited for content, and must be received by the Sunday prior to publication. The Crusader reserves the right not to pub-lish any letter or content deemed objectionable or which does not meet the editorial standards of the newspaper. Letters may be mailed, e-mailed, or brought to The Cru-sader offi ce in Hogan 235.

The opinions expressed within the newspaper are not necessarily those of the College of the Holy Cross. This newspaper is printed by Community Newspaper Com-pany. Reproduction of any part of this paper is by per-mission of The Crusader only.

Email: crusader@g.holycross.edu

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Phone: (508) 293-1283

Student Government Association CornerProviding You With Your Weekly SGA Updates

Check back weekly for updates on what your SGA is doing, as they listen to the students’ voices and work to create a

stronger campus community.

SGA updateCommunication. Research. Support. Practicality.

A New Student Voice

SGA Elections

Meet the Candidates—March 24Primary Elections—March 25-26Co-Presidents Debate—March 31

Final Round of Elections—April 1-2

Good luck to all candidates for SGA positions next year!

Be sure to make time in your schedule this semester to stop by the SGA Offi ce in Hogan 220 to voice your concerns and

chat with SGA members!

upcoming Events

Purple Goes Green Week—March 24-28 The Amazing Race—April 6

Purple Pride Day & Cornhole Tournament—April 11 WSGA Conference at WPI—April 12

SGA Banquet—April 14Second Semester Coffee Shop—April 24

Inter-Departmental Kickball Tournament—April 27 Puppy Room—May 6

St. Patrick’s Day Weekend Special Edition

Public Safety BlotterFriday, March 14Carlin Hall: Student complained of loud music on the second fl oor

Off-campus: Offi cer called in a traffi c accident that occurred outside Gate 3

Saturday, March 15Mulledy Hall: Offi cers confi scated alcohol from students in stairwell

Mulledy Hall: Offi cers confi scated alcohol from students on fourth fl oor

Healy Hall: Offi cers responded to report of suspected drugs

Sunday, March 16Loyola Hall: Students complained of a loud party

Monday, March 17Student Lot #1: RA requested offi cer assistance regarding an assault involving a knife or cutting instrument

Tuesday, March 18Lehy Hall: Student reported someone climbing through a second fl oor window

Front Pages from Back in the Ages

This issue of The Crusader is from March 24, 1972. The front page stories include a story on cam-pus thefts over breaks as well as a story on the Chairman of the Irish Senate giving a lecture on

campus about Ireland the night before St. Patrick’s Day. For more archived copies of The Crusader, visit www.thehccrusader.com.

From FAVREAu, page 1

notion that “Holy Cross is an idea that challenges us to live a life that is not only reflec-tive, but involved.” Over a decade later, members of the Class of 2014, as well as their friends and family and the entire campus com-munity, will get to hear about Favreau reaching his gradu-ation day goals and the successful career he has led following his four years on Mount St. James. In reference to this year being Favreau’s second go-round on the Holy Cross c o m m e n c e m e n t stage, he promised via Twitter to deliver new material. Alongside Favreau, Rev. John

W. Padberg, S.J. and Rochelle M. Bard, ’98 will also be recognized at the ceremony with honorary

degrees. Padberg is a Jesuit priest and acclaimed scholar. He has over 75 publications about Jesuit history and higher education. Bard, a young Holy Cross alum like Fa-vreau, was a biology major and is now a critically acclaimed soprano. She has won top honors in vocal competitions around the world. Bard will be per-forming at Carnegie Hall later this sum-mer. The Commence-ment Exercises will be held on Friday, May 23, 2014 at Fit-ton Field.

The Crusader NEWS March 21, 2014 3

THAT’S NEWS TO MENews Stories from Around the World Moscow, Russia—President Vladimir Putin and the leaders of Crimea have signed a bill to absorb the peninsula into Russia. Mr. Putin told Parliament that Crimea, which was taken over by pro-Russian forces in February, had “always been part of Russia.”

Paris, France—Paris took dras-tic measures Monday, March 17, to combat its worst air pollution in years, banning around half of the French city’s cars and trucks from its streets in an attempt to reduce the toxic smog that developed last week. Cars with even-numbered license plates were prohibited from driving in Paris and its suburbs, following a government decision over the weekend.

New York, New York—A suspected gas explosion leveled two buildings on Park Ave. in East Harlem on March 12. The medical examiner has released the causes of the deaths of eight people who were in the build-ings—they were either burnt or crushed to death.

Berlin, Germany—On Tuesday, March 18, Germany authori-ties have arrested a 93-year-old man on suspicion of “multiple counts” of accessory to murder while he was a SS guard in the Auschwitz death camp.

Pomona, California—Authori-ties have filed criminal charges against 14 teenagers who alleged-ly broke into a Southern Califor-nia mansion and held a party that caused more than $1 million in damage and losses, including the theft of a stuffed snow leopard. Authorities say the party promot-ed on social media in November brought more than 100 teens to the La Habra Heights mansion while the owner was away. Washington, D.C.—President Barack Obama awarded Ameri-ca’s highest military honor to 24 men previously denied the deco-ration because of discrimination. The recipients include Hispanic, African-American and Jewish vet-erans of World War Two, Korea, and Vietnam.

Ottawa, Canada—The last Ca-nadian troops returned from Af-ghanistan on Tuesday, March 18. The 84 soldiers arrived in Ottawa on Tuesday morning on a military airplane escorted by fighter jets. Canada lost 158 military members during its 12-year mission in Af-ghanistan. This news follows the report released Tuesday morning announcing that at least 2,176 members of the U.S. military had died in Afghanistan as a result of the U.S.-led invasion of Afghani-stan in late 2001.

Evan GroganNews Co-Editor

With the college application process coming to an end and final decisions on applicants be-ing made, the future class of 2018 Crusaders will soon be solidified. This year the College of the Holy Cross received 5,300 applicants and is aiming for about 2,300 ap-plicants to be accepted. Ms. Ann McDermott, Director of Admissions, said, “This year, we were looking for students who had exceled academically, noting AP and Honors classes, and who had been involved in leadership positions and had different pas-sions and interests.” Interviews are also highly rated as well as location—where stu-dents attended high school and where they are from is also taken into consideration. Ms. McDer-mott said, “Our application pro-

cess is highly personalized, and we truly consider each applicant holistically.” The application review process begins with two individuals on the admissions staff reading each stu-

dent’s application. The first read is assigned randomly, and the sec-ond read is assigned for a specific group, such as legacy applicants. Then, the admissions committee, a group of thirteen people, reads the applications. The committee

met each day from February 14 to March 14 from 9:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. with a 30-minute break for lunch. During the committee meetings, each student’s profile, along with

their high school’s profile and a record of previously-accepted students from their high school, is projected onto a screen. Indi-vidual documents such as essays or thank-you letters for an inter-view or tour are also brought up

with a student’s profile. After the initial readers comment on the applicant and all of the materi-als are reviewed, a vote is taken for each applicant with a majority ruling. Ms. McDermott’s role in this process is to act as the chair of the committee. However, she re-views as many applications as everyone else. She said, “This is a very rewarding career. It keeps you on your toes; it is exhausting yet highly enjoyable.” Ms. McDermott became the Director of Admissions in 1994 after attending Holy Cross for her undergraduate years, where she was also was a tour guide. Before becoming the Director of Admis-sions at Holy Cross, she was the Director of Admissions at Sim-mons College.

HC Admissions Committee Solidifies Accepted Students for the Class of 2018

“Our application process is highly personalized, and we truly consider each ap-

plicant holistically.”

Wreath-laying Ceremony Commemorates 50th Anniversary of the Death of Fr. Joseph O’Callahan, S.J.

Photos by C PaddockFr. Joseph O’Callahan was a Jesuit priest who earned a Medal of Honor for his work during World War II. At Holy Cross, he served as professor of mathematics

and physics. The campus community commemorated the 50th anniversary of his passing with a mass and ceremony on Tuesday, March 18. Shown above, Father Bor-oughs and Chaplain Covino were among those in attendance.

From FREIJE, page 1

and Montserrat. She also served as Assistant Dean for Curriculum Management (2003-04), and Class Dean (1995-2003) for the Class of 1999 and the Class of 2003. Her past involvement on College committees includes the Curricu-lum Committee, the First Year Program Committee, the Presi-dential Task Force on Diversity, the Student Life Council and the Mission and Identity Committee. She has also been a faculty rep-resentative to the Trustees’ Aca-demic Affairs Committee. Currently, Freije is a faculty member in the department of mathematics and computer sci-ence, specializing in algebraic number theory and arithmetic geometry. In recent years, she has taught courses within the Mont-serrat program as well as courses on game theory, chaos theory, cal-culus, multivariable calculus, lin-ear algebra and abstract algebra. Her published work and presenta-tions encompass not only math-

ematics, but also Jesuit educa-tion, mission, and the liberal arts. Freije is a recipient of the NE-CUSE Grant, “Innovative Meth-ods in the Teaching of Mathemat-ics,” (with Holy Cross colleague David Damiano) and the 1992 Hewlett-Mellon Award, “Revis-ing the Calculus Sequence.” She has also been honored with the Holy Cross Distinguished Teach-ing Award (1997) and was named a “Woman of Distinction” by the Girl Scouts in 2003. She lives in Worcester with her hus-band Richard M. Freije, an attor-ney. “I am excited and energized to begin this new chapter to advance the future of Holy Cross,” said Freije. “Holy Cross has been my academic home for 28 years. I look forward to working together with faculty, staff, students and alumni in the days, months and years ahead to build on the Col-lege’s solid academic foundation and to deepen its commitment to the teaching, learning and scholarship that are hallmarks of Jesuit liberal arts education.”

Courtesy of Holy CrossJon Favreau, former

speechwriter for President Obama, will be returning

to the commencement stage this spring after

delivering the Valedictory speech in 2003 (shown

above)

4 � e Crusader NEWS March 21, 2014

Do you want to start writing for The Crusader?

Have any interesting stories you want covered?

Let us know! Email us at crusader@g.holycross.edu

THAT’S NEWS TO MENews Stories from the Worcester Area Sunday, March 16A city man was shot early Sunday morning during a fi ght in the Gulf Gas Station on Madison Street. When police arrived at the 185 Madison St. location at ap-proximately 2:15 a.m. on Sunday morning, they found “scared” people gathered in the parking lot, according to a release from the Worcester Police Department. Police were told a man had just been shot inside the store and that the shooter was still inside.

Monday, March 17Massachusetts State Police ar-rested three people on Sunday on charges of heroin and cocaine traffi cking following a traffi c stop in Auburn. During a search of a Jeep Grand Cherokee, Massa-chusetts State Police located 100 grams of heroin and 60 grams of cocaine, according to a press release.

Tuesday, March 18 A coalition of community banks, quasi-public agencies and a local development group has wrapped up a complicated $37 million fi nancing deal to turn the former Telegram & Gazette headquar-ters into a downtown center for college classrooms, a theater and a café.

Assumption College voted unani-mously to extend the contract of President Francesco Cesareo through June 2020, the college announced Monday. Cesareo, president since 2007, oversaw $15 million in fundraising and the opening of a new campus in Rome last year. His contract was set to expire in June 2015, according to the college.

The “Dark Knight” movie cos-tume that transformed the image of batman into an armored crime fi ghter will appear at the Worces-ter Art Museum as part of the upcoming Knights! exhibit.

Kelsey Littlefi eld News Co-Editor

On March 13, Robert Maryks spoke in the Rehm Library about the causes and history of the 18th-century expulsion of the Society of Jesus from Roman Catholic na-tions throughout Europe. Maryks is the visiting scholar at the Jesuit Institute at Boston College and editor-in-chief of the Journal of Jesuit Studies. His publications on the subject include “Saint Cicero and the Jesuits (Catholic Chris-tendom, 1300-1700)” and, with co-editor Jonathan Wright, “Jesuit Survival and Restoration,” coming out later this year. Maryks divided his lecture into three distinct parts: the 18th-cen-tury historical context of the Je-suit suppression, its immediate causes, and its long-run causes. National suppression from Portu-gal, France, and Spain, along with Papal suppression, comprised the immediate causes. The Jesuit In-stitute, ultramontanism, probation and accommodation, and the Jesu-it myth encompassed the long-run

causes. Maryks explained that the suppression in Portugal and mul-tiple Jesuit myths were the primary causes of the Jesuit suppression during the 18th century. Maryks often refl ected on the ideals of the Enlightenment era in order for the audience to un-derstand the “enormous impact of world involvement” in this op-pression. He also made various references to Voltaire’s Candide in order to assimilate the impact of the historical context with the core infl uential outcomes from the Enlightenment. He discussed the implications of shared views, utilizing a letter from Catherine the Great to Voltaire as a primary source of evidence for such col-laboration. He concluded the his-torical context aspect of the lec-ture with the statement, “not every monarch embraced the ideas [of the Jesuits], but all were aware of them.” The suppression in Portugal was Maryks’s main argument for the suppression and the aspect he was the most knowledgeable. He explained how the great Lisbon

earthquake of 1775 propelled the political tensions that ultimately affected the Society of Jesus in negative ways. He described the earthquake as a “complex manifes-tation.” He also went on to distin-guish the “confl ict between Catho-lics” and their role in “God vs. the natural world.” The Jesuits were a “domestic, yet foreign body” and played the role of “confessors and people close to the monarch.” The Society of Jesus was the center of multiple confl icts during this time period, including their place in universities and the strong op-position they felt from the other orders, especially the Dominicans from the beliefs against the spiri-tual exercises. Maryks dubbed the basic cre-ation of the Jesuit institution as the “seeds of oppression,” while simultaneously discussing the im-portant, yet harmful outcomes of the circulated Jesuit myths. The inaccurate accounts of the amount of gold Jesuits possessed, for example, fueled the arguments of other orders against their exis-tence. Additionally, members of

the Society of Jesus were portrayed as “bad educators,” although we know this to be untrue because Frederick the Great utilized their educational abilities and was not apt to suppress them when other groups had already begun to do so. Philosophers were ultimately able to make up these myths be-cause they “could not understand scientifi c experience of process” and “were unable to be in dialogue with modern science.” Thus, it was believed that the only way peace would occur between the Catholic Church and the people was to ex-pel the Jesuits. Robert Maryks’s discussion provided an in-depth look at the power of global infl uence and also provided the audience with a dif-ferent perspective on the impact the expulsion of the Jesuits had on Catholic Church. By utilizing a three-step approach to the top-ic, Maryks gave the audience key takeaways from his talk, including European and Enlightenment im-pact and the power of inconsis-tencies in theory.

Robert Maryks Lectures on the History and Causes of Jesuit Suppression in the 18th Century

Opinions The Crusader OPINIONS March 21, 2014 5

“The Pulse of Events”: a page dedicated to the debates of our times. This week’s topic: The Minimum Wage

The Pulse of Events

Henry Callegary Staff Writer

On May 25, 2007, President George W. Bush signed into law a bill which raised the minimum wage from $5.15 to $7.25 an hour. Since then, the econ-omy has gone through the worst re-cession since the Great Depression, putting a squeeze on the paychecks of every American. This is especially the case with low-income workers who are forced to find extra jobs and take up part-time labor just to make ends meet. President Barack Obama has re-peatedly urged Congress to raise the minimum wage to $10.10, while tying future increases to inflation. This is due in large part to the fact that if the minimum wage were tied to inflation it would currently be $22 an hour. Mak-ing matters worse, the current wage rate leaves a worker over $3,000 dol-lars below the poverty line. It is time for Congress to act and raise the wage while tying it to inflation going for-ward. Doing so would help those most in need during this time of economic hardship while helping many hard working Americans make their way out of poverty and into the middle class. While several different propos-als at the local, state, and federal level would raise the minimum wage, the most tangible and significant at-tempt is found in legislation written by Senator Tom Harkin of Iowa and Congressman George Miller of Cali-fornia. Both Harkin and Miller are se-nior Democrats, and their plan would increase the minimum wage to $10.10 in two years while instructing the Sec-retary of Labor to increase the wage based on changes in the Consumer Price Index every year thereafter. The Harkin-Miller plan has gained 33 co-sponsors in the Senate and 196 in the House of Representatives, but hasn’t received a single Republican endorse-ment. This means that the odds of any bill passing the House (where the Re-publicans are in the majority) or the Senate (where there are enough Re-publicans to filibuster any legislation lacking bipartisan support) is zero-

to-nil. The painful reality is that Con-gressional Republicans simply won’t vote for any legislation which gets the government more involved in the economy, even if that legislation helps millions of hard-working Americans.While there are plenty of moral argu-ments in favor of raising the minimum wage, there are also sound economics. While many conservatives claim that raising the wage will kill jobs, a study by the generally laissez-faire magazine The Economist found that increas-ing the minimum wage, as long as the yearly total remains below 50% of media income, “could thus boost pay with no ill effects on jobs.”A report by UMass Amherst economist Arin Dube titled “Minimum Wages and the Distribution of Family Incomes” found that raising the wage to $10.10 would lift 4.6 million people out of poverty. In a time of trillion-dollar deficits, a minimum wage increase is a fiscally responsible way to fight the disease of poverty in this country. A wage increase would be particularly helpful in the South where average in-comes are significantly lower than the national and where most states either have no minimum wage law or actually require a lower minimum wage than the federal government does. Ironi-cally, many of these states have elected many of the most conservative mem-bers of Congress and who oppose any increase in the minimum wage. To put it simply, Congress has a mor-al and economic obligation to raise the minimum wage. President Obama’s proposal, along with the likeminded Harkin-Miller plan, is an excellent idea which needs to be taken seriously by members of both parties. Inaction is preventing millions of workers from moving up the economic ladder and fulfilling the American Dream. This is not a case of a feel-good propos-al without sound economic backing. Raising the minimum wage will re-duce poverty, put more money in the wallets of millions of Americans, and it won’t cost the federal govern-ment one penny. Congress needs to do the right thing and raise the wage.

It’s Time to Raise the Wage

Patrick HoranGuest Writer

One need only open a major newspaper or watch a few minutes of the news to know of the renewed in-terest in raising minimum wages at both the federal and state levels. President Obama’s call to raise the minimum wage from the current $7.25 per hour to $10.10 per hour would be a 39% increase, the high-est percent increase in the history of the federal wage. The reasoning for increas-ing the minimum wage can be simplified into two categories: 1) to act as a safety net that gives work-ers enough income to live above the poverty line and 2) to put money in the hands of workers, who will, in turn, stimulate economic growth through consump-tion. The failure of the 2009 stimulus to live up to economists’ expectations as well as theoretical problems of Keynesian economics makes the latter reason sus-pect, so let us address the former. Proponents of raising the minimum wage posit that the current wage is not high enough to live a decent life, and they are right to point that it is especially diffi-cult to raise a family and meet basic needs on such a meager income. But who earns the minimum wage? According to a 2013 Pew study, slightly over half of all minimum wage earn-ers are 16-24 years old. This makes sense. Wages are determined by workers’ productivity, which is de-termined by relevant skills, education-level, and work experience. On average, youths are simply less edu-cated and less experienced.

Continued, Page 6This explains why they are more likely to be earning the minimum wage, but it also explains why the mini-mum wage is more likely to hurt the youth. If an em-ployer determines that a prospective employee might be worth, say $5 per hour, but not $7.25 per hour, that employer will not hire. It is not necessarily because the employer is cold-hearted;

it is because his business cannot take on the added labor costs. By the same logic, if the minimum wage is raised, employers will ei-ther cut hours or just lay off workers whose value to their firms doesn’t match the new wage. The minimum wage’s counterproductive impact on employment is all the more debilitating because even low-level jobs can be important steps on the eco-nomic ladder. A teenager, who may not have access to a good public school, can take on a low-paying job at a convenience store. The pay is modest, but it is much better than the $0 per hour and negative psy-chological effects of unem-ployment. The teenager’s experience at this store leads to not only skills in operating a store, but his developing senses of time management and respon-sibility. As he matures, he can look for work that will pay him more. Crowding out workers from the labor market through a high min-imum wage prevents them from putting their lives into their own hands to pursue opportunities. A single-person earning minimum wage working full-time makes $15,080, 30% more than the pov-erty line and just over the poverty line for a family of two. However, most sup-porters of a higher mini-mum wage argue that the minimum wage is for poor, working families, not young singles. But the “Raise the Wage” page on the White House’s own website shows that only 26% of mini-mum wage earners have children. Furthermore, ac-cording to the Heritage Foundation, less than 21% of minimum wage earners are the sole bread-winners of their houses. Less than 5% are single mothers over 18.While there should be policies, to help such strug-gling families, the minimum wage is not the solution as it would only help some, but hurt many more. Speaking of policies to help the working poor, there is one good one: the earned income tax credit

(EITC), which Obama and minimum wage earners fail to mention. This is impor-tant because when progres-sives claim that the real value of the minimum wage has fallen by one-third since 1968, they fail to take into account the EITC, which boosts the incomes of fam-ilies, especially those with more children.Another argument pushed by minimum wage propo-nents is that Australia’s minimum wage is roughly $15.30 (in American dol-lars), and yet it does not suffer from the high unem-ployment economic theory would suggest. But the Dev-il is in the details. Australia, like other countries, includ-ing the United Kingdom, has a graduated minimum wage that increases with age. Would such a scheme work in the U.S.? Perhaps, but, like America, Austra-lia has disproportionately high unemployment among the young and low-skilled. Furthermore, a graduated scheme is not the current policy proposal. On the op-posite side of the minimum wage spectrum, Switzerland has no minimum, and it has an unemployment rate of only 3.5% according to The Economist. It’s true that the Swiss economy is very different from the Ameri-can one, but a similar case can be made for the Amer-ican-Australian comparison as unemployment rates are functions of a multitude of variables. The debate over the mini-mum wage has raged for decades, and it will continue to do so with some econo-mists saying the wage wors-ens unemployment, while other say it will lift others out of poverty. The reality is that nobody can know for sure, but given this uncer-tainty, creating more jobs and programs to train peo-ple for jobs would be better policy prescriptions than raising the blunt instrument that is the minimum wage.

Patrick Horan ’14 is the Co-Editor-in-Chief of The Fen-wick Review.

Minimum Wage Hike is Not the Solution

Read more of the “Pulse Page” on page 6, where editors continue their debate on the minimum wage.

Have an opinion? We would love to hear it! Please email your submissions by midnight on Sundays to Victo-ria Fritz, the Opinions Chief Editor, or crusader@g.holycross.edu.

6 The Crusader OPINIONS March 21, 2014

Jake Bass Guest Writer

I was rather pleased that the Senate’s position paper which criticized the off-campus applica-tion stirred as much dialogue as it did. On the Monday of last week, members of the SGA were invit-ed for a discussion with several administrators regarding the pa-per. I think some good came out of the discussion. We were able to communicate our frustrations about the off-campus application to the administration, as well as our concerns about the social scene at Holy Cross on the whole. I would, however, like to refute

some of the criticism the paper has sustained since it was unani-mously published by the Senate: 1. The displacement factor - Other Senators and I have writ-ten in the past that more students on campus means more seniors living in Carlin and Alumni, and that this displacement of up-per classmen in lower classmen dorms cascades down and causes freshman living in forced triples. I should clarify that this effect is not necessarily direct because of several factors, including differ-ent class sizes and the amount of students studying abroad. This aside, the more students there are on-campus rather than off-

campus, the more people are living in undesirable housing. 2. Forced triples - It was sug-gested that the SGA should move away from using the term ‘forced triple’ since it promotes a negative atmosphere. This is as tasteless as it is asinine. The atmosphere is negative because freshmen are placed in triples, not because ‘forced’ is an aggres-sive word. The point of the SGA is to advocate for the increase in the quality of student life; not to promote an agenda that looks the other way about a problem facing the student body. I real-ize some students may have had a pleasant experience living in a

triple. But a lot of them didn’t. Few had a choice in the mat-ter. “Forced Triple” is appro-priate, unless the school wants to make them “optional triples” 3. There was very little student input in the matter - I am sticking to this point 100%. As far as I’m aware, the only students involved in supporting this decision were the three SLC members at the time. Furthermore, the student body was made aware on June 8th, 2011 of this policy: I still have the email which announced the policy. How could students have raised concerns about the application when they were on Summer Break? I would take this

one step further - the timing and lack of student input is evidence of an active effort to not involve the student voice because the ad-ministration was aware that the application would be unpopular. The off-campus application is just one of the several problems we have facing the social scene at Holy Cross. But it’s something that the SGA and indeed the student body ought to address.

Jake Bass is the Speaker of the Senate. The views expressed are not necessar-ily those of the Senate or the rest of the Student Government Association.

Notes on the Senate Position PaperThe SGA and Administration Continue Talks

About Campus Housing

Garrett BychOpinions Co-Editor

Few political phrases are more controversial in today’s world than “raise the minimum wage,” or con-versely, “save jobs, don’t you dare raise the minimum wage.” Every-one it seems, from both sides of aisle or anywhere in between, has a very strong opinion on this is-sue. In total and complete fairness, statistics have shown that there are both positives and negatives to each argument and that while raising the minimum wage will not solve poverty, it also won’t destroy millions upon millions of jobs, as some politicians and opponents of the wage hike would like to sug-gest. To give a little background, Presi-dent Obama put this plan into place because, as he argued in his 2014 State of the Union Address, no American who works full time should be below the poverty line.

In fact, as the Bureau of Labor Statistics showed in 2012, some “16.5 million Americans currently earn less than President Obama’s proposed $10.10-per-hour federal minimum wage.” For the President and the majority of Democrats around the country, this figure is simply unacceptable. They con-sistently argue, and have merit, in the assertion that in order for the American Dream to ever truly be a reality, those who work the hardest must be rewarded, and currently working daily at $7.25 an hour does not get the job done. There is no denying, from any-one in the political world, that all Americans want others in our great nation to strive for and achieve prosperity at its maximum poten-tial value. The trickiness to this minimum wage issue is, as Repub-licans eagerly retort, at what cost are we willing to still go ahead and raise the minimum wage? The clas-sic argument from the right, in op-

position to this wage hike, comes from the understanding that if small businesses and companies are forced to pay the few employ-ees that they have almost three dollars more per hour, they will simply cut the amount of people they employ because they will not be able to afford to keep as many workers. Now, this claim likewise comes with its own merit attached. If raising the minimum wage kills more jobs than people it helps, it will certainly not be for the best. Thus, the statistics, which are of-ten disputed and there are way too many data points to be manipulat-ed in any direction possible, must (rather unfortunately) be consulted to work out this issue. Recently, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) assessed President Obama’s goal of raising the mini-mum wage from $7.25 a year to $10.10 over a period of two years. As stated in Time Magazine, “The CBO estimates that the Demo-

crats’ plan would eliminate 500,000 jobs by the end of 2016 while also lifting some 900,000 families out of poverty.” Republicans have ea-gerly jumped on this report by as-serting that the CBO has blatantly described the problems with the president’s plan, and the hundreds of thousands of people it will hurt. On the other side of the aisle, Democrats have ignored the job loss and instead pushed this pro-posal as the much-needed start of lifting hard-working Americans out of poverty and furthering the pros-perity of our nation. Whatever the statistics tell you, the bottom line is that President Obama’s proposal is neither per-fect nor “an abomination.” It is just that: a proposal. It aims at lim-iting poverty and asserting the long sought after principle (furthered by Republicans ironically) that if you are poor, you should seek to pull yourself out of the metaphorical hole by working harder. Obama’s

message is just that. We see those of you doing your best, pushing through trials and tribulations, and we acknowledge that we need to help you so that you hard work can go further. While such a message does not come without its con-sequences, I believe that it is the right message to send. There are too many people below the pov-erty line in our country currently, and the middle class is shrinking. By raising the minimum wage, cur-rently impoverished individuals who do work hard and do strive for success daily can come closer to joining the middle class and fulfill-ing the goal of living the American Dream. This minimum wage hike would hurt some small businesses most certainly, but I would argue it does more good than harm. After all, no one wants to see our coun-try sitting around and twiddling her thumbs when there is work out there to be done.

$10.10: Simply Too Catchy To Ignore

Jackie BellandoStaff Writer

This January, President Obama made a bold promise in his State of the Union Address: to raise minimum wage by almost three whole dollars. It’s a big step for a country still recover-ing from an embarrassing Con-gress versus Executive branch brawl. Now, with another hope-ful promise stamped out on speech paper, I’m curious to see if the President (and of course, the rest of the government that will have to, by some miracle, agree with him and make it pol-

icy) follows through with action. “Be kind, for everyone is fight-ing a hard battle.” I heard this quote before and thought I fully understood it, until I got an ur-gent text from my mom asking me to call home. I’m now on a bus driving south to New York where I’ll return to the same Long Island town I’ve lived most of my life alongside two sets of Bellando’s: my own family, as well as my aunt, uncle and cous-ins who live on the other side of town. I called home and learned one of my cousins unexpect-edly took his life this past week. “Be kind, for everyone is fighting a hard battle.” It’s true: from the

Holy Cross freshmen approach-ing their second finals week, to the seniors looking forward to their futures, to the man flipping burgers in Worcester minimum wage, to my cousin. We all know the world is not perfect; there will always be challenges to face that act as turning points in our lives. In light of President Obama’s State of the Union speech prom-ise, I’d like to take a step back and ask something of you all. We can apply the term “minimum” to almost anything in an effort to tangibly describe it, here being the money in our pockets. We se-niors have “minimum” time left at Holy Cross once we hit Cape

Week; many of us think of the “minimum” amount of time we have to find a job post-grad (un-less you want to take my friend’s route and say you’ll just fail out and be a fifth year senior forever). And yet there is only one thing that does truly last forever, free of any minimums or maximums: love. Love for those around you, love for yourself, love for the chance we are all so amazingly granted- to be here and to live life now. So from my comfortable-enough Peter Pan bus seat, I just want to remind you: “Be kind, for everyone is fighting a hard battle.” Realize whom you love and tell them: your parents and siblings,

your roommates and friends, your professors and mentors. Leave Holy Cross for summer 2014, whether it’s for your first or last time, with no regrets-the only ones being, again, those founded in that infinite, four letter word. Share this article and your love with a friend or family member this week. I say “Go Obama” for looking to raise minimum wage in this country, but there is only one reason for any of us to live, and it’s not definable in economic terms. It’s love.

For My Cousin

The Crusader OPINIONS March 21, 2014 7

Sarah FreeStaff Writer

Everyone has been there: while absentmindedly scrolling through one type of newsfeed or another, on a nice evening, maybe a week-end or maybe a weekday, we are bombarded with one thing: sun-sets. We see it setting over water, behind trees, under clouds, and down mountainsides. Almost any permutation of an average to above average sunset is made available to us, given the right online friends and appropriate time of day at the perfect time of year. Hardly a week will go by where we do not see a sunset that isn’t one of the seven we might have born witness to ourselves. In the present-day, one of the most prominent ways to share our thoughts, opinions, likes, dislikes, and ultimately values, is through social media. It is on the Internet and on our phones where we display an image of ourselves that we want others to take for face value. During the process of individuation, we tend to find that many of us are rather leaning towards generalization—it seems that many post the same things to get the same re-actions, and feel validated by the people we may or may not know. The idea of the “online iden-tity,” in many ways, has turned into a homogenization pro-cess of human self-conception.

While sometimes the same-ness that we witness day in and day out on social media can be viewed in a negative light, there are instances where this is not detrimental to our idea of hu-manity, but rather promising. Like pictures of sunsets thrown online in the wake of self-pro-motion, these photos represent something different than the typical post. They are not, at base, shameless vanity, but rather the antithesis of every reason that they were posted in the first place. Simply put, they may have initially been posted to convey one message, but rather encom-pass something entirely differ-ent—something that the “post-er” may not even be aware of. A photo, or 20 photos, of a gorgeous sunset, captures the idea that there is some recogni-tion faculty that people have in common. We are able to recog-nize the power of something far beyond our control. There is something in the unpredictable that appeals to us where we are awestruck by the beauty of some-thing that we ourselves did not create and could never replicate.Photo after photo of sunsets captures the idea that to a certain degree, we understand our own fallibility as humans and are able to recognize the beauty and true power of life itself. When we cap-ture and share the awe-inspiring, we exhibit subtle recognitions of something greater, something

that cannot be harnessed, reined in, and controlled by the human population. In an era where we knowingly or unknowingly at-tempt to predict and control ev-ery aspect of our environments, we are increasingly taken aback by the unruliness, unpredict-ability, and serendipity of what we encounter in our everydays. While we battle daily with the idea of our own impermanence and mortality, trying as we might to form some sort of perma-nence in our own lives, we are drawn to that which is simul-taneously fleeting and eternal; gone but then back the next day, awe-inspiring yet short-lived. We attempt to immortalize some-thing that we know will surely be born again. We cannot guar-antee our own existence day to day, so we take comfort in that which is beautifully stable.There is something that is calmed inside of me when I see count-less photos of sunsets. It restores a certain faith that even though sometimes it seems that man-kind is on an inevitable track to lose a sense of awe of the world around us, we still attempt to find immortality in the mortal. It renews the hope that maybe we can recognize pieces of forever embedded in the hope that the sun rises, just to set once more.

Free Thinking: The Value of Instagram

Sunsets Jonathan Thompson

Staff Writer

Lately I’ve noticed something: whenever I go home for a break from college, I find that my Twit-ter feed becomes filled with tweets such as “Can’t wait to go back to school”, “Being home is overrated”, and “So bored” among several oth-ers. This always discouraged me as I found myself asking, “Am I not enjoying school enough?” because I truly enjoyed being home. I soon realized that it is absolutely fine to be content with where one currently is in life, if not better than itching to be somewhere else. It has become a part of our culture nowadays to want to be somewhere other than where we currently are. I find this to be quite troubling. To always strive for something bigger and better I do think can be posi-tive, however I think at times it is perfectly okay to sit back and mar-vel at the state of one’s being. I wish we could all stop looking for the future or dwelling on the past and authentically attempt to be as pres-ent as possible right now. The world moves so quickly that it is important to let go of our pasts and let our futures simply be from time to time. If one is consistently set on what happened in the past, it is safe to say that there is little room for growth within one’s life. While at times re-flection on one’s past is necessary to move forward, it would be a mistake to stay in the past, as that would be a rather depressing place to be. The mistakes we make are important to the person we become, but they

should not determine the rest of our lives. Having a goal in mind for one’s fu-ture is definitely positive, but when that goal is everything that one’s life revolves around, life becomes less about living and more about achiev-ing. We should all realize the future is inevitable, and thus not worth fretting over. While I realize my Twitter find-ings are just a small part of a larger overarching issue, I chose to bring it up because I think it shows how many of us turn to social media when we find ourselves in a “bor-ing” situation. Think about what we could all be doing instead of com-plaining via social media about our current “boring” state of being? I think saying that one is “bored” is perhaps the laziest thing one could say. The world we live in is vast and ready for all of us to experience. The next time you find yourself in a “bored” state, just think about all of the things you could be doing: go for a walk or run, read a book, cook something, the possibilities are truly endless! At the end of our lives we should be able to look back and see that we lived in the present, not the past nor the future. Life is finite and for that reason I think it is vital that we all take moments during our hectic days, filled with what may seem like endless amounts of work, to reflect and think about what we are actually doing. We cannot take the present for granted, for it is what will lead us to our ultimate happiness.

The Present

Victoria FritzChief Opinions Editor

Something that has recently caught my attention (due to the opening of a new SoulCycle in Chestnut Hill-obsessed) while signing up for fitness classes is the high going price for each one. Just an example: my first class at SoulCycle was $20, and every subsequent class after that will be $30, including a cycling shoe rental and a fee for water. So, if I happen to forget water and obviously don’t own cycling shoes, my total spent for each class will be a whopping $35. WOW. Now my usual cycling studio, FlyWheel, is a bit less- free your first time, free shoes and water (unless you want to be fancy and buy some Smart Wa-ter), and a summer student deal of $20 a class. Now for some of us $20 a class may not be that much, but it adds up- going 3 times a week is already $60 a week, for a total of 2 hours and 15 minutes of workouts. Don’t

get me wrong, these classes WORK- my legs are definitely looking much better in dresses than they used to- but they’re not kind to my wallet. Why do these classes cost so much? It’s not just class fees; it’s gym memberships, yoga classes, barre classes etc etc. Everything seems to be so wildly expen-sive these days for those of us who feel we’re above running on the pavement, something my mother always brings up when I complain about how much of a blow it is to my wallet to workout. Is it because we’re paying for the rent premium, or the renovations it took to make our spin studio look pretty, or are our dollars just feeding into the bigger corporate giant that makes up these national fitness studios? In the end, it’s not much to complain about- half of the workout for me is where you do it; if it’s not a good experience, you don’t go back. Why spend money on something you don’t

enjoy? At the same time, these places are taking students like me for a ride (punny)- $35 for a 45 minute cycling class? This is crazy. But not crazy enough for me to stop going; then where would I get such a good sweat on?! Some advice for those of us who don’t want to break the bank on these classes: the prices offered for classes taking place at HC are actually amazing. If trying a class for the first time, definitely try your luck here to see how you feel. I gave them a go and was not too im-pressed, but then again I prefer a small tattooed instructor sit-ting among candles blaring Be-yoncé remixes in my face while I workout- that’s just me. All I’m saying is that I’m not yet a stay-at-home mom with cash to blow, so it would be nice to get a break once in a while (cough student rates please).

The Price of FitnessDavid Perretta

Staff Writer

It’s no secret: The Ukraine has been having a rough past few weeks. The Russian population of Crimea has ri-oted, the Ukrainian naval leader for the area has defected, “unmarked” (Russian) troops have moved in, Crimea has voted to secede (though the legitimacy of that vote must be called into question), Russia has formally recognized Crimea as an independent state, and Moscow is preparing to annex the region. Did I miss anything? Probably. There has been a lot of noise in the media regarding what exactly the President should do. When try-ing to understand the situation and formulate a response, it’s impor-tant to remember a very important fact: the Ukraine willingly removed its nuclear arsenal so long as the United States and Russia (amongst other nations) would protect, re-spect, and maintain its sovereign-ty. This is a complicating factor. If the United States fails to inter-

vene, then we will send a message to all of our allies whom we have also sworn to protect: If the bully is too big, then sorry, we won’t help you. In the international community, this makes us look like weak liars. For the sake of our security, that is awful. Furthermore, our reaction against Vladmir Putin must be strong, for we do not want him believing he can take over any land he desires. Sure, today it may be a place he feels a cul-tural connection to, but it’s a short jump in logic to deciding he can steal lang with strategic value afterwards. And let us not forget what hap-pened in Georgia a few years back. The Russian bear must be tamed. I am a lowly college student; I have never been considered an expert in international relations. All I know is that if the United States does not stand up right now, there’s a good chance that nobody will take us seri-ously when we need to in the future.

Crimea in Crisis

8 Th e Crusader OPINIONS March 21, 2014

,

The Roving Reporter

Compiled by Michelle Moreno-Silva

“I would like hip-hop or rap. I honestly have no idea, but I have a feeling it’s going

to be a band.”-Mary Bassaly ‘16

“I would like to hear hip-hop, if

possible. I would like it to be Nas because of the

20th Illmatic An-niversary.”

-Chardwin Jean-Bapriste ‘16

What genre of music would you like for the spring concert,

and do you have any guesses for who it might be?

“Hip-hop or rap. I heard it’s go-ing to be Snoop

Dogg.”-Christian Ruiz ‘17

“I want country, and I have no idea what it might be.”

-Seton Hartnett ‘14

“I want either coun-try or alternative,

but I think it’s going to be a rapper.”

-Kyler Canastra ‘14

“Something you can dance to, upbeat. Maybe someone like Chris Brown,

and probably a rock band.”

-Nicole Hasanova ‘16

Julie BoothOpinions Co-editor

Admittedly, I probably spend more time on Facebook than the average person should. It’s so easy now to waste precious time scroll-ing through my newsfeed on my phone. Awkward situation? Face-book is there to save you from the pain. Waiting for a friend? Face-book will be your friend in the meantime. Stacks of homework for days? Facebook will help you ac-complish nothing. And along with my avid, obsessive scrolling, I am also a serial “un-friender,” going on friend-deleting sprees like it’s my job. There are a lot of reasons to delete someone off your friend list, but there are some main offenders of Facebook etiquette; I call these people the Facebook Faux Pas.

The fi rst is the Chronic Bragger. This person is probably someone from your past, maybe high school, who utilizes Facebook status up-dates to remind everyone how great his or her life is. He probably goes to an Ivy League school (which he incessantly posts about), drives your dream car (of course, there are a lot of pictures), has the best jobs, sto-ries, and luck, and has you wonder-ing what you ever did with your life when you read his posts. We get it; your life is amazing; delete this guy from your friend list now, and stop comparing your life to his. You will feel so much happier once you do. Second is the Conspiracy The-orist. Every post from this guy is something controversial. They go along the lines of “9/11 was an inside job” or “the spaghetti mon-ster is real” then followed by a complete dissertation of why he is

right. The conspiracy theorist will always play the Devil’s Advocate, and if he’s not ranting about the government in his own post, he’s starting an argument about religion in someone else’s. In all honesty, you don’t need to be controver-sial to get people to talk to you. In fact, it kind of makes people not want to talk to you. Delete. Next, we have the Pretentious Connoisseur (can also, in some cases, be called the “Pseudo-Intel-lectual”). For this guy, Facebook is the medium through which he can show the world just how smart he really is. His posts can be about anything, as long as they show off his superior knowledge of the sub-ject; and they must be meticulous-ly crafted with large, extraneous words, and complex syntax that make the post resemble an inde-cipherable essay from last semes-

ter’s philosophy class you barely scraped by in. He may also try to make his page into a sort of forum by ending his posts in questions in order to start debates in which he will completely crush the nay-sayer with a premeditated argument (for the Pseudo-Intellectual, he will at-tempt to win the debate but will fall short). Sorry, bro, I just use Face-book for the vines and cat memes; please save the debate for class. Speaking of having too much in-formation, the Overly and Openly Emotional Girl is our next per-petrator. We all have this friend; she’s the one who doesn’t know when she’s revealing too much and writes her statuses like they’re diary entries, consequently smoth-ering all her Facebook friends in unnecessary emotion and thought (emojis included). If you want to know just how much this girl loves

her boyfriend on any day, you only need to count how many smiley faces and hearts suffi x her status. She’s emphatic, her statuses ri-val the length of those written by the Pretentious Connoisseur, and any sense of grammar is nonexis-tent. Please, I’m begging you, stop. Next, is the Irrelevant Reporter. This person reveals every detail of his or her life that has absolutely zero importance. Every insignifi -cant thing is posted for the world to see. No one cares what you got on your sandwich or that you de-cided to get coffee instead of tea for one magical time. No one cares. If you or one of your friends is guilty of one of these Face-book faux pas, please twice be-fore posting. Believe me, we’ll all thank you for it in the end.

Delete These Facebook Friends Now!

Features The Crusader FEATURES March 21, 2014 9

Crusader of the Week:Genesis Torres-Alcantara, ‘17

Faculty SpotlightProfessor Giovanni Spani Hannah ShawFeatures Co-Editor

If you haven’t met Holy Cross Italian professor

Giovanni Spani, now is your chance. I visited Professor Spani on the recommen-dation of a fellow stu-dent, Abe Ross, who told me how he enjoys Spani’s Dante class immensely, where students get the chance, as Abe puts it, “to delve into the complex and interesting world of Dante while also sharing a few laughs together.” Dante is one of topic among many of Spani’s specilties.

Professor Spani is a spe-cialist in Italian Literature, and organizes an annual seminar entitled “Literature and Sin.” The seminar takes place every January in Palma de Majorca, Spain, where Spani is joined by profes-sors from UMASS Amherst, and Universitat de les Illles Balears to participate in the seminar. Last January’s semi-nar was called, “Letteratura e Pigrizia,” which focusing on literature and the sin sloth, or laziness, and was given in four different languages, in-

cluding Spanish and Italian. While Spani enjoys his seminars in Spain, he says that he truly enjoys his time on Mount Saint James. Spani says, “my students make my day” and “I am happy to go

work.” Professor Spani first arrived at Holy Cross in 2009, after previously teach-ing at both Bowdoin and Middlebury College. Spani says he likes the community surrounding a small liberal arts college, where “you get to know everyone better.” At

a small college, Spani says, “students always want to stop and talk.” Spani knew he wanted to work at a small liberal arts school after re-ceiving his Ph.D. at Indiana University, an enormous university. Spani recalls, “It could take eight blocks to walk to the library.” One word of advice Spani has for all Holy Cross stu-dents is that they “have to dare.” He says, “don’t be shy.” The typical Holy Cross student is “too po-lite and likes to raise their hands” when they should “dare” to speak out. Spani says that college is the per-fect time for a student to be daring, so learn from a professor who has a little more life experience. The Holy Cross professors are not going to let their stu-dents down, and acting dar-ing is the only way to learn.

Professor Spani knows what it means to “dare,” as he was once part of the punk rock band, Asgard, named after a pagan para-dise. During his time with Asgard, Spani played the electric guitar and bass.

Astrologer Weekly: Does Astrology Work?

Hannah ShawFeatures Co-Editor

When I tell people about astrology, often I get a look of perplexity fol-lowed by a few of the usual questions: Does astrology actually work? I’m like my sign, but aren’t signs so ambiguous anyway? Why do my compatibilities never work out? Today, I’m going to explain my answers to these questions. Astrology is a subject not unlike philosophy or religion–there’s a lot of things left up to interpretation. It’s not a perfect science. It’s not even a science. But it can “work.” One thing that always bugs the perplexed indi-viduals that I encounter is that they feel that they are nothing like the persona attached to their sign. Some people are nothing like their star sign. It can’t be helped. There are only twelve signs and there are defi-nitely not just twelve types of people. With that said, there are a lot of traits that are up to interpretation. Every amateur astrologer is going to have a slightly different definition of what kind of personality goes with each dif-ferent sign. The essence is the same. Another issue I see all the time is that some people just don’t want to be the sign that they are. No sign is really bet-ter than any other, but all signs have

negative traits that go with them. A lot of people who think they’re really like some other sign usually just don’t want to fess up to the sign that they are. So what if Cancers are weepy or Taurus are stubborn; you are who you are. Now lastly, why don’t all compatibili-ties work? I hear this complaint all the time and it makes less and less sense the more I hear it. Compatibilities do generally work on the principle that certain personalities are better suited to other certain personalities–their general traits just mesh well. But when a supposedly compatible relation-ship don’t work out, astrology takes the blame. Remember again, twelve zodiac signs categorize the entire hu-man population. If it’s not working out with that hottie from math class who just happens to be your astrologi-cal match, don’t blame astrology. That hottie from math is one among mil-lions who also happen to be “your as-trological match.” The derpy kid who sits behind you in chemistry is just as likely to be your astrological match. The point is that compatibilities can work excellently, but astrology works in ambiguous ways. There’s a lot left to in-terpretation. If you’re open to its many possibilities, then yes, astrology works!

Has Racial Diversity on the Runway Improved?Sydnee Young-Brown

Staff Writer

Well, it’s official: fashion week season is over. Which means my days of scroll-ing aimlessly through Insta-gram, Tumblr, and fashion blogs seeing stills of models walking in fashion shows in New York, Paris, and Milan are no more. But, recently, I was getting my fashion fix and stumbled across a cou-ple different articles about the models chosen to walk in the shows. The issue aof whether the fashion indus-try is diverse or not was the topic of both articles. In the first article, Brit-ish model Jourdan Dunn expressed pretty vehemently that there is not a lot of ra-cial diversity on the catwalk, and that many people are afraid to speak up about this problem. Dunn has recent-ly become one of the few widely known high-profile black models (you’ve prob-ably seen her in Beyoncé’s YONCE music video, if not on the runway). Even still, she has stated that she has experienced discrimination; she spoke of a make-up art-ist not wanting to work with

her and also about being rejected from castings be-cause “they didn’t want any more black girls.” Further-more, Dunn has mentioned that when she is booked for a show, she finds it strange when an agent will com-ment and say something like, “You’re the only black girl booked for the show. Isn’t it great?” In my opinion, this remark is meant to be a compliment, but in actual-ity, it is anything but. In fact, this comment only serves as proof that the fashion in-dustry lacks racial diversity. The second article I read was featured in Vogue and its title read, “Is the Fash-ion World Finally Embrac-ing Diversity?” (which ob-viously caught my eye after reading the article about Jourdan, who was featured in the April issue of Miss Vogue, claiming that the in-dustry was not diverse). In the article, it was mentioned that models of color have secured their place in fash-ion since the 60s (yet they were only able to list about 5 names of known models of color). And although it has taken a while for catwalks to become diverse, there are

changes being made. The ex-ample of this change, used in the article, was a photo of 3 models of color featured in an Oscar de la Renta’s 2014 campaign ad. These mod-els were all about the same skin tone, shared the same European features and had loosely curled hair. Not very diverse if you ask me, but I guess they believe it’s a start.This debate is constantly re-fueled, in my opinion, for a couple different reasons. On one hand, it’s a topic that some people are afraid to talk about. On the other hand, it’s a topic that others do not wish to discuss–which, evidently, leads to no real changes being made. Models of color who “make it” and are perceived as black, are chosen because they do not look black (they look mixed or exotic, like the models in the Oscar de la Renta ad). Overall, I believe that in or-der for the fashion industry to truly become diverse, it must include models that not only vary in skin tone, but also in things such as facial features and hair textures.

Natalie A. CorreaFeatures Co-Editor

Hometown: Manhattan, NYMajor: Undecided (Psychology, Sociol-ogy, or English…clearly I’m indecisive!)Best Dorm: WheelerFavorite Animal: Giraffes because they’re so tall, they can see the world from up thereFavorite Book: The Giver by Lois LowryFavorite Color: Green and BlueFavorite Movie: Little WomenFavorite Song: Anything from Michael Jackson; he’s my idol.Favorite TV Show: Full HouseFavorite Holy Cross Class: CRAW FictionFavorite Meal On Campus: Chalupas!Favorite Professor: Professor StoneFavorite Off-Campus Restaurant: Dino’s RestaurantCampus Activities: LASO, SPUDAdvice for fellow Crusaders: Live day by day. Have faith that God has a plan, everything happens for a reasonGuilty Pleasure: Dominoes at 2 a.m.Embarrassing Story: I walked straight into a clear glass door at TGIF’s in a full restaurant, everyone saw it!Hobbies: Community service, acting, and writingPet Peeve: People who drag their feetDunkin Donuts Drink: Coffee CoolattaNumber One Thing On Your HC Bucket List: Lead an Immersion trip

Your Mantra: “Your greatness is re-vealed not by the lights that shine upon you, but by the lights that shine within you.”Twitter or Instagram: InstagramCrossroads or Kimball: Crossroads

Where Do You See Yourself In Ten Years?: Definitely doing something for my community, and hopefully involved in non-profit work.Goals for Second Semester: Finish strong, focus fully on my academics, and enjoy time with my friends before sum-mer break commences.

10 � e Crusader FEATURES March 21, 2014

Natalie A. CorreaFeatures Co-Editor

It has been way too long, but I would just like to say welcome back! Whether you did an immersion trip, traveled to a different area, or stayed home, I hope you all had a wonderful break. I person-ally spent my spring break in New York, and was able to do some shopping with my best friend in Manhattan. I’m not sure why, but I went insane shopping for bracelets because I wanted to show off some arm candy as we enter the spring season. I’ve been inspired and amazed by layering the perfect decorated arm, and would like to share how to style some arm décor to prepare for spring! 1. Bangle It Up!Many women, like me, are obsessed with Alex & Ani bracelets! Just pile a few of these on and trust me, people will be turning their heads to check out those banging bangles around your wrist. Alex and Ani bracelets are ador-able, lightweight, affordable, and many of them carry sentimental messages.

2. Play Up A ThemeIf you are wearing an intense outfi t, especially for holidays, I suggest that you wear arm candy that goes along with your outfi t! For example, if you are dressing to show off your patriotic side on the 4th of July, I would suggest wearing watch with a red, white, and/or blue band with other bracelets in those colors. 3. Layer A ColorWhether your favorite color is pink, blue, purple, red, etc., show it off and just pile it on! 4. Mix & MatchGather your bracelets and have them complement each other. I suggest mixing blues with pinks, yellows with greens, and purple with white (show off that Holy Cross pride!). 5. Pile On GoldThis may sound cliché, but it is also classic. A gold bracelet is an essential to everybody’s jewelry collection.

I hope you have a fabulous and wristy week!

Wristy Business

Review: Neon Genesis Evangelion

Leonardo HernandezAnime Reviewer Extraordinaire

As a kid in middle school, I grew up on cartoons, Anime, video games–any-thing geared towards entertaining chil-dren. I’d say that Western cartoons played a bigger role developing my in-terest in creative writing, yet I can’t gloss over Anime. Japanese animation has a culture foreign to my own, which births stories more compelling and in-triguing than anything back home. However, back in middle school, I was only exposed to Poké-mon, Digimon and Naruto. The first two Anime were shows based on trading card games, had like-able characters and fantastic battles, and were pretty kid-friendly. Naruto has much the same–a lot more blood but just as goofy. However, Naruto bridged the gap between Anime for kids and Anime for young adults. This is just the framework for the piece I’m about to discuss: Neon Genesis Evangelion. Before I tackled Eva, I’ve watched other Anime that take me to a dark place. Anime geared towards kids can be well written and even suspense-ful at times, but they rarely delve into dark themes. Dark themes, to me, are things relating to human psychol-ogy and philosophy. These themes make you question yourself as a per-son in relation to others and the world. Major themes explored in Eva are

human relationships, futility, and self-worth. The plot of Eva focuses on Shinji Ikari, a young boy named who becomes the pilot of a mysterious machine called Evangelion. He is one of a handful of Eva pilots tasked with fighting demonic creatures known as Angels. Eva takes place in Tokyo-3 after the Second Im-pact, a catastrophic event nearly annihi-lating humanity entirely. Shinji and the other pilots, Rei and Asuka, are led by a powerful organization known as NERV. The series centers on the pilots and secondary characters as they fight the Angels and prevent another catastrophe. The series redefined Anime in the late 90s and beyond. Watching Eva as an Anime fan is comparable to watching Citizen Kane in relation to cinema. A viewer interested in watching Eva needs to understand this because the show may appear generic. The series is clas-sic, an originator of motifs and trends now commonplace in most Anime. Again, the series is a character study, not a typical action Anime. The strong point of this show is the char-acters and how they cope with their extraordinary situation and dark pasts. Eva starts off slow, introducing the world and its players but picks up steadily, building up momentum un-til you question the reality you oc-cupy. This is a show I wholeheartedly recommend to anyone wanting a bet-ter appreciation of Anime, storytelling and well-written, developed characters.

Let’s Talk “Non-Stop”Emma Collins

Staff Writer

He trained Batman and Obi Wan. In his spare time, he’s busy single-handedly over-throwing the seedy under-world of European human trafficking. And if that wasn’t enough, you can also find him on Mount Olympus ruling the Gods or bare-knuckle wres-tling wolves in Alaska. In short, Liam Neeson is a force to be reckoned with. Even when he decides to stoop down to our mortal level, this Irish native can’t help but let his steely calm, ma-cho-man self shine through. Playing center in the mov-ie, “Non-Stop,” directed by Jaume Collet-Serra, Neeson

takes a turn of character as an alcoholic air marshal in charge of a transatlantic flight to London. Naturally, Neeson is called on to save the day when his passengers are targeted by a terrorist hid-den somewhere on the plane. This movie is fast-paced with undercurrents of dark emo-tional struggles that fuel a fire of tense internal conflict be-tween the passions of a savior and a man struggling to sur-vive. I wouldn’t go so far as to say this was an Oscar-win-ning performance for Nee-son, but his role as the deeply troubled air marshal does pull at heartstrings and, of course, is effortlessly executed. The movie’s commentary on America’s national security

holds a loaded message. The theme of a paternal figure in disgrace, soul-searching for answers and explanations, is also prevalent throughout. And, of course, by nature of the American cinema’s feel-good demand, “Non-Stop” is neatly tied up with a sentimental bow, albeit far-fetched from reality’s physics. So if you like to get your action fix at a cruising altitude of 30,000 ft. and don’t mind a little deep thought, I strongly recommend this movie for a Friday night excursion. After all, in terms of action, you can’t go wrong with Neeson.

Overheard On The Hill...

Custodial Staff, Cleaning Up Student’s Vomit: “Not as Irish as you thought, are you?”

The Crusader FEATURES March 21, 2014 11

Pub-Crawling Through Prague, Czech RepublicMarcello Santoro

Study Abroad Staff Writer

For those of you interest-ed in hearing about an excel-lent adventure to Prague, look no further. Holy Cross Firenze took the city by storm in the company of some of the finest travelers this side of the Appe-nine. The weekend was high-lighted by beautiful architecture, tall Pilsner brews, and meals fit for kings; I could not have imag-ined before departing how in-credible the weekend would turn out to be. As a tour guide for the travel company Florence-ForFun, I led this incredible group (with some help) through this Eastern European gem. We arrived Friday morning “well-rested” after a thirteen hour bus ride from Florence, to the lovely Czech Republic. Upon arriving at our hostel, we were left speechless by our home base’s clean and chic interior, its extensive breakfast spread, but, above all, its rotating bar. We ate nearly everything in sight be-fore we departed for our guided walking tour through the city

with the help of our wonderful local tour guide, Jitka. She took us to some of the most impor-tant sights of the city: Wenc-eslas Square, the Old Town Square and the astronomical clock, the St. Charles Bridge, and the Jewish Quarter to name a few. After this the group was free to explore, but most of their bright and shining faces fol-lowed the master plan as we journeyed to the heart of traditional Czech culture: U Flekü. To begin, this wonder-ful establishment is exactly what I expect paradise to look like when I pay the piper. Opened in 1499, it is the oldest brewery in Prague and carries on the Czech tradition of good food, and beer. The beer hall can hold up to 1200 people in its various rooms and gardens, everything in the traditional Czech style. Visitors are greeted at the table, without being asked, with a tall glass of their specialty dark beer, a recipe

that has been maintained since the brewery’s opening over 500 years ago. The instant you fin-ish your beverage, the hawk-like

waiters swoop in and replace your depressingly empty glass (without asking), with a freshly-headed and beautifully crafted thirteen percent dark lager mas-terpiece. This is the stuff of fairytales, ladies and gentlemen. We ended our afternoon and prepare for dinner, where yours truly proceeded to eat a bowl of goulash (God’s gift to man),

potato dumplings, roasted cab-bage, biscuits and, oh yeah, an entire duck. This is called a “life win” my friends, and it involves

eating until you hate yourself. Without getting too specific, my lovely co-tour guide and I led a delightful pub crawl, culminat-ing with a drunken, hairy, and pot-bellied Englishman hav-ing his clothes removed by his friends before crowd surfing in the middle of one of Prague’s oldest Gothic cellar bars. Using deductive reasoning, and under-

standing that they were British, we concluded that it must have been his bachelor party. He re-ceives a free pass for the night. After I dragged my co-tour leader from her bed, we led an incredible walking tour from our hostel that stopped at the St. Charles Bridge, the John Len-non wall, Starbucks (not my choice), and the Prague Castle. After seeing the cathedral, we stopped at the top of the hill with all of Prague staring back at us. Pictures try to give jus-tice to how beautiful it really is, but fall very short. The walking tour ended at The Prague Beer Museum, which is an excellent locale with over 30 traditional Czech beers on tap. The par-ents (my co-worker and I) then decided to let the kids go out and play as we went to splurge on a wonderful Thai massage. By splurge, I mean we spent 275 Czech Koruna (roughly $13.80) for half an hour—Prague is unfathomably inexpensive.

Stefanie SchefterFeatures Co-Editor

You may remember Junot Diaz from his visit to campus last semester, or rec-ognize his name from his bestsellers The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao and Drown. This Is How You Lose Her does not disappoint, and upholds Diaz’s already im-pressive literary talent. The book follows main character Yunior through the ups, downs, and outright torture of love. It is a series of short stories, connected through the protagonist and the women that come and go from his life. Throughout This Is

How You Lose Her, we see the many differ-ent forms that love can take—romantic love, destructive love, abusive love, broth-erly love, maternal love, and the illusion of love. Diaz does an impressive job illustrat-ing the messy, imperfect nature of love, and how it can both uplift and devastate us. His writing style is as sharp as ever, rich not only with quick-witted, often vulgar humor, but also with lines so poignant and full of clarity that they ought to be in a poem. For any fans of Diaz, This Is How You Lose Her will only encourage your existing admiration, and for anybody who’s never heard of him, you’ll soon be an ardent fan.

Review: This is How You Lose Her By Junot Diaz

Maggie WalshChief Features Editor

My allegiance to ABC’s The Bachelor this season has been wavering at best. It can be dif-ficult to commit to two hours of drama and miscommunica-tion every Monday night, and while I tried my best, I failed to closely follow the trials and tribulations of Juan Pablo Gala-vis’ lacking love life. Though my betrayal would be easy to blame on the cheesy and over produced nature of The Bachelor, I attri-bute it almost completely to Juan Pablo’s lack of charisma and general persona. If you similarly failed to tune in every week or sit through ten Hulu ads on Tuesday afternoon, last week’s “After the Final Rose Ceremony” should sum it up pretty cohesively: Juan Pablo is even stupider than

he appeared to be on the show ,and while he doesn’t love Nikki, the recipient of the final rose, he doesn’t think his relation-ship is any of ABC’s businesss. If you aren’t well-versed in the previous eighteen seasons of The Bachelor, the three months of group and one-on-one dates are expected to culminate in a proposal and an outrageously expensive engagement ring being offered to one lucky girl. Juan Pablo isn’t the first bachelor to forsake the proposal but, as host Chris Harrison pointed out, Juan Pablo’s bachelor journey is the first of its kind: concluding in a relationship but not with the bachelor finding love. This sea-son was similarly the first sea-son in which Chris Harrison so blatantly despised the bachelor. The “After the Final Rose” cer-emony devolved into an endless

cycle of Juan Pablo and Chris interrupting each other and Juan

Pablo claiming not to love Nikki.

While many of us can appreci-ate Juan’s honesty, his ignorance to the logistics of The Bach-elor franchise are astounding–he must have signed some contract or something, right? Accord-ing to Juan Pablo, his love life is his own private business, which is exactly why he went on na-tional television to find his next girlfriend. As Catherine Giu-dici, wife of last season’s bach-elor Sean Lowe, pointed out, Juan Pablo “shouldn’t bite the hand that fed him,” and idiom that Chris Harrison had the pleasure of explaining to Juan. Surprisingly, Clare Crawley, the runner-up who was hated by most of the girls in the house and much of America, arose the heroine when she exposed Juan’s explicit speech to her in the he-licopter. After assuring Clare that she would be the winner of

this season’s show, Juan rejected Clare for Nikki. Clare candidly revealed that the closest Juan ever came to professing his love was some crude remark made to her on their final date. The fi-nal interview of the eighteenth season of The Bachelor wasn’t nearly long enough for Chris Harrison to list everything he hates about Juan Pablo, so much of the Internet has taken to com-pleting this mission for him and I am similarly happy to oblige. The light at the end of the tun-nel will be the appearance of attorney Andi Dorfman as next season’s bachelorette, so let’s hope she reads the contracts saying that she will be in the public eye...and I’m sure pro-ducers are penning a clause le-gally obligating her to fall in love.

Juan Pablo Galavis: Reality Television’s Newest Villain

@GossipSquirrl March 16

“Overheard: ‘Public Safety was outnumbered in Kimball yesterday. They didn’t know what to do. I could smell

their fear.’”

Follow Gossip Squirrel at

www.twitter.com/gossipsquirrl

12 The Crusader FEATURES March 21, 2014

The EggplantThe Crusader’s Satirical Page

Jake Lachance“Poughkeepsie State Flying Cougars,” 2012 Dodgeball Champions. “The In-vincible Bondurants,” 2014 Dodgeball

Champions. Every year the back is differ-ent. My sophomore year it was “Rule #76: No excuses, play like a champion.” Last year it was a bracket that featured “you” verses “me” with “me” winning. This year, it reads “Those who say ‘It’s just t-shirt’ don’t get it.” Ah, yes. The intramural cham-pions t-shirts. Every year, the same people gather their teams of high school has-beens to try to get their names sewn into the fabric of Holy Cross Intramural history. The greatest thing about in-tramural sports is that it is the ultimate platform to bring all

of these twenty-two-year-old nobodies under one roof just to pull hamstrings left and right. It is during these games that peo-ple first utter “I am too old for this” and actually mean it, but this is what we live for. The glo-ry days. Holy Cross is filled with these people living in their own delusional past and believe me, I am the first to admit that I am one of them. My friends have heard the sto-ry of how I struck out looking to end the game against Saugus, Mass on ESPN when I was 11, resulting in our team being one game short of a Little League World Series berth one million times. Am I still bitter? Yes. Do I still hate Mike Scuzzarella for striking me out? Yes. Are these rational feelings for any com-petitive has-been? Of course it

is. And it is for these reasons and people like me and Kevin in mind that colleges create intra-mural leagues. Through it all, the one sport that cannot be ignored is dodge-ball. The top three things in this world that men do to be manly are: 1) Grilling 2) Killing things with their bare hands and 3) Playing dodgeball. One of the most notable men that is a mainstay in the dodge-ball scene is Kevin Cruse. Hail-ing from the Holy Cross High School, more commonly known as Chaminade High School, this 6’2,” 154-lb club baseball ace wreaks havoc on whatever court, field, or diamond he sets his foot on. I mean, this guy can really sling it. Unfortunately for Mr. Cruse, every Superman has his kryptonite, and for him it is

the playoffs. Evidently he has been looking at the playbooks of Charles Barkley, Karl Malone, and Dan Marino because they were equally incompetent when their season/legacy was on the line. There are two possibilities of why this is the case. The first is superior competition. This is a pretty valid thought consid-ering my intramural dodgeball team has beaten his two out of the last three years (I was abroad last year), though I will stop this aspect of the argument there, because Putin has already called dibs on starting World War III. The second and more histori-cally supported possibility is that his mental toughness isn’t up to par. I mean the guy just crumbles. The 2004 Yankees were report-ed to come to his middle school

dodgeball games to take notes on how to lose a series. And it’s a sad thing, because we are truly rooting for you man, the whole school is behind you. There is nothing that I love more than a Disney-esque tale of redemp-tion. And hey Kev, the stakes have never been higher. My friends and I are all graduating this spring, and hey, what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, it is practically a perfect storm. I’d say just ask Kelly Clarkson, but her career has tanked pretty hard too. So my friend, I can only tell you to get back on the horse and get after it on the slow-pitch softball field this spring. But for the time being, it seems like you think it is just a t-shirt. Turn that frown upside down and go get it.

Kevin Cruse: Just Doesn’t Get It

Nick FasanoResident Gavone

In a classic spring break adven-ture out of Van Wilder, a group of Holy Cross seniors traveled down to Punta Cana, Dominican Re-public for “Sader Games” and fun in the sun. What they didn’t know was that they had been followed, but by who? As it turned out it was Holy Cross’ finest, the most venerable officers of the Public Safety Department made the au-thoritative decision to accompany the Crusaders on vacation. They were sent with one purpose and one purpose only: Do whatever necessary at any cost and any ex-pense to prevent these Holy Cross seniors from having fun, whatso-ever. The first instance of repression came as the saderz were walking back from the open bar with trays of “Mama Juana” shots (a local aphrodisiac) to commemorate their first day at the resort. As they were passing out shots to their colleagues, two officers dressed in Speedos, shark tooth necklaces and sporting some pret-ty sweet spray tans, apprehended them. The students in question were held in makeshift holding cells, which were actually Smart Cars marked “Kicked onto Cam-pus”. When asked for comment, the Public Safety officers stated that they were simply ensuring that the students followed the Holy cross student contract. What that con-

tract actually entails no one quite knows. The next reported incident was on the fabled booze cruise. As the saderz partied it up on the catamaran, Public Safety Officers pulled up along side on jet skis, reminiscent of Kenny Powers, and pulled the errant yacht over. Public Safety reported that they detained 85 saderz after it was all said and done, confiscating three Busch Light cans. Public Safety also made an ap-pearance later on at the discoteca. Officers broke up the party on the grounds that several neighbors on College Street were allegedly com-plaining about a large party and debauchery, and that the students “already were given a warning ear-lier in the night.” The legalities of these detainments were ques-tioned by the government of the Dominican Republic, as the le-galities of unwarranted entrances into off-campus houses have also been questioned, but Public Safety justified the decisions, stating that they were protecting the students in question from potential self harm and preventing the possi-bility of underage consumption of alcohol. They had no formal comment on every student on the trip providing identification prov-ing they were of legal age. In the end it was just all in a day’s work for our Public Safety offi-cers. Thankfully, they were there to promote the safety of our stu-dents.

Students Extra Safe Over Spring Break

Thanks to Public Safety

Boy This Was A Mistake

Peter CarlinoStill Very Hungover

Wow, I made a mistake. On Thursday I met Jake Lachance and paper editor Brendan Hig-gins, who by the way is twenty times funnier than me, at the Greyhound Pub. We got to talking and Lachance was all about writing an article in the Eggplant this week. Higgins threw the challenge my way and in my “less than clear” state of mind I figured I could get an article done. How hard could it be? Lachance barely has a brain in his head and he got one done, and I am hysterical. What could go wrong? Apparently everything could go wrong. I woke up Friday morn-ing, too hungover to write an article. I woke up Saturday after-noon too hungover to write an article. And you guessed it; here I am Sunday night too hungov-er to write a real article. Here I am, texting Higgins that, “The article is basically finished bro,” and that “you better wear diapers because you’re gonna poop your-self when you read this,” but lo and behold there is no article to be found. Not even the faintest of an idea. Like what am I gonna write about? What made me think this was a good idea? We are gonna be throwing a huuuuuuuuuge picture into this article somewhere, there is a zero percent chance that I can fill out a page here. I may also just have to copy and paste some of my tweets from this weekend just to

fill up space (@pouchesoftuna for any of you ladies wondering.) “Audrey Hepburn’s eyebrows

were dumb thick.” Jesus did I really think that needed to be said? And “Dumb thick”? Really Pete from March eleventh, you thought that idea needed to be put into the world? Man, let’s just keep going. “Desperate for companionship to Kimball later. Will swipe in/create good conversation.” No surprises here but exactly zero people took me up on this of-fer, but luckily I brought a book and my laptop so it looked like I may have been doing work while I downed my four chicken sand-wiches. Okay let’s keep suffering through this. “I bought “Bridge for Dummies” when I was 12 be-

cause I wanted to learn how to play bridge, the card game played by senior citizens.” What was

going through my head there? Were chicks supposed to think that was cool? I mean there is a zero percent chance anyone could relate to that tweet. Nobody in the history of time would ever be responding to that “OMG ME TOO!!” and thus nobody did. Man can this just end already? I’m sorry to everyone I’ve let down here, hopefully I’ll think of something to write about in the future. Come on come on come on this is almost done? Can I just end it here? Wait now I’ve got an idea, okay so a student is going walking into Hogan and

Advertising Peter’s favorite thing in the entire world: Domino’s Pizza.

The Crusader SPORTS March 21, 2014 13

Sports

Pete ZonaStaff Writer

For the third consecutive year, an incredible season has ended with heartbreak for the Holy Cross Cru-saders women’s basketball team. After an outstanding Patri-ot League Tournament run that saw wins over favored opponents Bucknell and Navy on the road, the Army Black Knights defeated the Crusaders at West Point this past Saturday by a score of 68-58 to record their first Patriot League title and NCAA tournament berth since 2006. The champi-onship drought for the Crusaders has extended as Holy Cross last won the Patriot League in 2007. After concluding the regu-lar season with a close road loss to the Boston University Terri-ers that also saw junior forward Emily Parker suffer an injury that would sideline her for the tournament, it appeared unlike-ly that the Crusaders would be able to make a run in this year’s Patriot League Tournament. Concluding the regular sea-

son with an overall record of 18-11 and a 10-8 record in the league, Holy Cross earned the fifth seed out of 10 which matched the team against the fourth seeded Bucknell Bison. While Bucknell won both reg-ular season matchups between the teams, Holy Cross exacted revenge in the tournament. De-spite the Bison jumping out to an early 9-2 lead, the Crusaders fought back to take a 37-34 lead into the break. They came out on fire in the second half opening up a 75-56 lead before a Bucknell run trimmed the final margin to 79-66, sending the Crusaders to the semifinal where they would face the three-time league defend-ing champion Navy Midshipmen. Sophomore forward Raquel Scott led the Crusaders in the quarterfinal matchup by record-ing her 16th double-double of the season with 27 points and 11 re-bounds. Additionally, senior guard Alex Smith tallied a double-dou-ble with 13 points and 12 assists. After falling to Navy in sev-en straight matchups includ-

ing twice in the Patriot League championship game, the Cru-saders travelled to Annapo-lis very focused on their task. The #1 seeded Midshipmen were looking to match the Cru-saders’ record streak from 1998-2001 of winning four straight league titles. It could not be more fitting that Holy Cross preserved their piece of league history. Senior guard Brisje Malone re-corded 23 points, seven assists, and six rebounds to lead the Crusad-ers in a rout of the Midshipmen. Raquel Scott had another out-standing game as she had 15 points and 10 rebounds, good for her 17th double-double of the season. While Holy Cross took an ear-ly 22-11 lead, Navy fought back to take a 28-27 advantage into the intermission. Neverthe-less, lights-out shooting and sol-id defense allowed Holy Cross to open up a 75-52 lead late in the second half before winning by a final score of 75-56. The win sent the Crusaders to their third straight Patriot League title game and 18th in league history.

After two games of lights-out shooting in the tournament, (55.4% vs. Bucknell, 50.9% vs. Navy) the shots would sim-ply not fall this past Satur-day against the Army Black Knights as the Crusaders shot a mere 34.9% from the field. In addition, the defense, which had been outstanding through the first two rounds, could not stop Army sophomore guard Kelsey Minato who scored 31 points in the title game. Raquel Scott led the Crusad-ers with yet another double-dou-ble with 15 points and 15 re-bounds while Alex Smith and Brisje Malone each scored 16 points in what could have been the last game of their excel-lent college careers. Scott and Malone were named to the Patri-ot League All-Tournament Team. Overall, it was a game in which Army led more or less from start to finish as the Black Knights demonstrated that they belonged in the NCAA Tournament as the representative from the Pa-triot League, defeating the Cru-

saders by a final score of 68-58. All in all, it was an exception-al season for Holy Cross wom-en’s basketball. The team fought through a lot of adversity includ-ing persistent injury problems and the three month absence of veteran head coach Bill Gibbons. Nevertheless, the team tal-lied 20 wins for the first time since 2005 and should certain-ly be under consideration for a bid to the Women’s National Invitational Tournament or the Women’s Basketball Invitational. The team has appeared in each of these tournaments on one pri-or occasion, losing to Vermont in the first round of the 2002 WNIT, and beating New Hamp-shire for the Patriot League’s first postseason win since a Holy Cross win in the 1991 NCAA Tournament over the #6 seeded Maryland Terrapins, before losing to Manhattan in the 2012 WBI. As a Crusader fan, the wom-en’s basketball team has proven year in and year out that it will never quit in its quest to bring glory to Mount Saint James.

HC Women’s Basketball Falls in Patriot League Title Game

Patrick Kerr Staff Writer

Entering their Patriot League Tournament semi-final match against American University, the Holy Cross Men’s Basketball team boasted a 15-0 record when leading at halftime. Likewise, the Crusaders led American 28-22. Dudzinski heated up early and added 22 points to lead Holy Cross, and Miller added his first double-double of the seasons 10 points and 10 boards. Unfor-tunately, the Men’s team Patriot League season ended in Wash-ington D.C as American scrapped back from a 10 point deficit and won. Next, American beat Bos-ton University thereby earning the much valued birth into the NCAA Tournament. Unfortu-nately for the Saders post-season believed seemed obsolete until the CollegeInsider.com Tournament awarded Holy Cross a chance at post-season college basketball. Although it is not the March Madness Tournament, the Cru-saders can improve their over-all season record and possibly bring some hardware back to the

Hart. In fact, the Men’s team beat Brown University this past St. Patrick’s Day with in a tight con-test, 68-65. Freshmen point guard

Anthony Thompson shaked-and-baked his way to 15 points, three assists, three rebounds, and

two steals. Green scooped up 14 points, as the backcourt of Dudz-inski and Miller each contributed 10 points. Burrell rounded out

the Crusaders’ double-digit scor-ers with 10 points of his own. At one point Holy Cross, again,

enjoyed a 14 point lead that quick-ly dissipated. Dudzinski’s offen-sive rebounds converted into points staving off the Brown

Bears rally. Furthermore, Mal-achai Alexander stuffed Brown’s leading scorer, Leland King’s

closing-seconds three-point at-tempt to solidify another post-sea-son victory for the Crusaders. Although Holy Cross had wished

for a date to battle against BU for the Patriot League crown, the Crusaders greatly exceeded expectations in the 2013-2014 basketball season. Picked to fin-ish 7th in the pre-season Patriot League polls, the Crusaders fin-ished in 3rd and entered the Pa-triot League Tournament as one of the hottest teams in college basketball. Coach Brown’s squad showed grit and togetherness through both a rocky first patch of the non-conference and Patri-ot League schedule. Undoubtedly the greatest moment of the season was closing out the last 13 games of the Patriot League schedule with an eye-dropping 11-2 record. Next season expect the Cru-saders atop of the pre-sea-son Patriot League polls, but more importantly, check out the Crusaders in March as they look to swipe the CIT and add some hardware to the Hart.

Crusaders Dancing to Another Tune in March- The CIT

Courtesy of goholycross.com Freshman Anthony Thompson led the way in the victory over Brown with 15 points.

14 The Crusader SPORTS March 21, 2014

Emily Iannaconi Sports Co-Editor

It’s 1934 and there are two run-ners on base in an A’s – Dodgers exhibition game. Pitcher Babe Didrikson walks the first batter, and hits the second. Now there are two runners on with no outs. Did-rikson only faces the minimum of three batters though, as the third hit into none other than a triple play. Jump ahead 19 years and we are in 1953 and at the playoff basket-ball game of Syracuse vs. Boston. Quadruple overtime, and an NBA record of 106 fouls, players are fighting players in this game and players are fighting the police. It is the second and deciding game in the first-round of the playoffs. The game features the heated ri-valry between Boston’s Bob Cousy (a famed Holy Cross grad) and Syr-acuse’s Paul Seymour. With time running out in the game, Boston is losing 77-76. But then Cousy is fouled at the buzzer! After he con-verted the free throw, the game goes into overtime. Throughout the four overtimes, head coach of Bos-ton, Auerbach, said that “The strat-egy was to get the ball to Cousy.” Cousy would eventually say that it was “perhaps the most draining game I’ve ever played.” After four overtimes, the final score is 111-105 Boston. Cousy, who only scored 7 points in the first half, ended up with 50 by the end of the game, breaking George Mikan’s playoff record of 47 and Ed Ma-cauley’s Garden record of 46. Cousy went 30-for-32 at the line, a record that still stands today for either a playoff or regular season game. In all, twelve players fouled out: seven for Syracuse and five for Bos-ton. No game since has seen that

many players fouled out. Records were set by both teams for free-throws, with a total of 128 attempt-ed and 108 made. Finally, Boston also set a record of 57 conversions, a best that will probably never be broken due to the change in rules. Eight years later, Art Mod-ell purchases the Cleveland Browns for what was at the

time, a record of $3,925,000. On March 21st in 1964, UCLA beats Duke 98-83 in the 28th NCAA Men’s Basketball Championship. UCLA would go on to have an un-defeated season of 30-0 that year. For any of you who have watched

ABC’s Wide World of Sports, Vinko Bogataj is the professional ski jumper featured in the opening credits. On this day in history, Vinko Bogataj crashed in a ski-jumping championship in Germany. The credits of ABC’s Wide World of Sports opens with the dialogue, “Spanning the globe to bring you the constant variety of sport…the

thrill of victory…the agony of de-feat…the human athletic competi-tion, this is ABC’s Wide World of Sports!” People refer to Vinko Bo-gataj as the “agony of defeat guy.” His wild crash was featured on the opening credits of ABC’s Wide

World of Sports for nearly 30 years, creating the catch phrase “the ago-ny of defeat.” In a matter of only 9 seconds, Bogataj made sports history in a very memorable way. It’s 1973 and Frank Mahovlich becomes the 5th hockey play-er in history to score 500 goals. And then its 1978 and the Pa-dres fire manager Al Dark during

spring training. Trying too hard and too intensely to control his play-ers, and after making a series of questionable managerial decisions about the Padres infield, Al Dark became the second manager ever to be fired during spring training.

On this day in 1980, President Jimmy Carter announces that the U.S. will be boycotting the upcom-ing Moscow Olympics. This boy-cott was part of a series of actions taken by the United States to protest the Soviet invasion in Afghanistan. To protest the President’s decision, marathoner Gary Fanelli led the pack for 15 miles during the Olym-pic trials wearing a shirt that read “The Road to Moscow Ends Here.” In the same year as the Olym-pics that the U.S. did not partici-pate in, 1984, NFL owners passed the infamous anti-celebrating rule. The following year, 1985, Ar-thur Ashe is named to the Inter-national Tennis Hall of Fame. Now rapid speed fast forward to present day 2014. Holy Cross men’s tennis plays Colgate tonight at West Point, New York and the women’s tennis team plays at Army this afternoon. Women’s lacrosse competed on Wednesday, and men and women’s track and field is scheduled to compete on the 29th. Sports, here at Holy Cross, and at the professional level, change every minute. Players and student-athletes continually practice in an effort to be better than they were yester-day. Nothing can be predicted or taken for granted because histo-ry does get made on a daily basis. Athletes break their own records and defeat themselves every day as they embark on the never-end-ing journey of becoming better. Who’s to say what will happen today? Sports, if they are about anything, are about becoming lim-itless. What limits will be exceeded today? Every day has the potential to be record-breaking. We wouldn’t watch or participate otherwise.

March 21st Moments in Sports History

Bob Cousy , a key player for Holy Cross and the Boston Celtics, goes for the ball in 1960.

John Morton Cheief Sports Editor

It is always tough when your season ends after beginning with so much promise. Losing three years in a row to the same team may be worse. This past week-end, the Holy Cross men’s hock-ey team concluded their season by losing the first two games of a best of three series 5-4 in OT and 4-1. For the third year in a row, the team that dashed Holy Cross’ hopes of advancing to the Atlantic Hockey semifi-nals is the Mercyhurst Lakers. Granted, it would have been a miraculous upset if Holy Cross (14-22-3) had beaten first place

Mercyhurst (21-12-7), but af-ter defeating RIT in the opening round of the Atlantic Hockey playoffs Sader fans had to have been confident in the team’s chances of pulling off the upset. In game 1, Holy Cross jumped out to a 3-0 lead with two goals from freshman Brett McKinnon and a goal from senior captain Ryan McGrath. Mercyhurst re-sponded with two goals of its own in the second period to run the score to 3-2. Sophomore Castan Sommer responded to Mercy-hurst’s second goal in 16 seconds by scoring from the faceoff circle on the glove side of Mercyhurst’s goalie Jimmy Sarjeant. Unfortu-nately, the Lakers were able to rally

in the third and score two goals, one of which was scored with the goalie pulled and only 26 seconds remaining. Seizing on that mo-mentum, the Lakers were able to score 4:40 into the overtime peri-od to give them the 5-4 OT win. Crushed after surrendering the lead and falling in overtime, the Crusaders were not able to score until the third period in game 2. Mercyhurst jumped out to a 4-0 lead and the only Crusader goal was scored by freshman Mike Barrett. The final score in game two was a 4-1 Mercyhurst victory. As depressing as it is that the Holy Cross hockey team’s sea-son is over, there is hope for next year’s squad. Currently, the team

has five seniors set to graduate next year. Among these five are goaltender Derek Kump, for-ward Mark Williamson, forward Adam Schmidt, defenseman Ryan McGrath, and forward Shayne Stockton. While losing these key contributors will be tough blows to the team, not only because of these players’ contributions on the score sheet, but also be-cause of the leadership they bring on and off the ice, the team n looks primed to contend for an Atlantic Hockey title next year. The Crusaders will be led by goaltender Matt Ginn, who in Friday’s loss to Mercyhurst, be-came the first Crusader goalie to record 1000 saves in a season, and

his rock-solid play in the net will be crucial for Holy Cross’ success next year. On the offensive side, Matt Vidal, Mike Barrett, Castan Sommer, and Tim Driscoll, who were among the leaders on the team in scoring, will return to lead the Crusader offense next year. Even though it is always tough to overcome defeat, especially to the same team for three years in a row, Holy Cross sports are re-silient. They will find a way to overcome this loss and continue to fight to finally make it back to the Atlantic Hockey semifinals. Next year’s team will aim to win the Atlantic Hockey champion-ship for the first time since 2006.

Holy Cross Hockey Season Ends Against Mercyhurst

The Crusader SPORTS March 21, 2014 15

Men’s Baseball- 3/22- @ Yale @ 1 and 3:30 Men’s Lacrosse- 3/22- vs. Fairfield @ 4

Women’s Softball- 3/22- @ Lafayette @ 12 and 2 3/23- @ Lafayette @ 12

Women’s Lacrosse- 3/22- vs. Lafayette @ 12

Support the Crusaders in the Following Games!

March Madness Set to Begin, The Crusader Staff Makes Their Final Four

and National Champion Predictions Even though March is known for St. Patrick’s Day, every year the en-tire nation is abuzz with filling out brackets and predicting a national champion in men’s college hoops. Unfortunately for Holy Cross, the men’s team was not able to make it this year, but hopefully the young team can win the Patriot League and score some upset victories over some of the best teams in the coun-try. It seems that every year there is always a surpise team (who knew Florida Gulf Coast would make it to the Sweet Sixteen and Wichita St. would go all the way to the Final Four and both of them defeated some powerhouse teams last year!). While the eventual champion Lou-isville was the number 1 overall seed, there are bound to be some surprises in this year’s tournament. Local teams participating this year include UMass, Harvard, Provi-dence, and American from the Pa-triot League. I am always hopeful that one of the biggest surprises in March Madness tournaments will come from a school in the New England area. With that said, here are The Crusader’s final four picks to make it to Texas for the national championship, along with a predicted national champion.

John Morton (Chief Spors Editor)- Final Four: Florida, Michigan St., Louisville, Arizona National Champion: Florida

Emily Iannaconi (Sports Co-Ed-itor)- Final Four: Florida, Michigan St., Louisville, Arizona National Champion: Louisville

Patrick Buscone (Sports Co-Ed-itor)- Final Four: Florida, Louisville, Creighton, and Michigan St. National Champion: Florida

Pete Zona (Staff Writer)- Final Four: Florida, Louisville, Virginia, Arizona National Champion: Florida

Even President Obama participates in the March Madness Frenzy and makes picks ever year.

Will the Louisville Cardinals dance their way to a repeat as national champions?

16 Th e Crusader SPORTS March 21, 2014

Purple Pennings with Patrick Buscone I’m writing this on Sunday, you

are reading it on Friday, or some later date. As I write this, March Madness has yet to begin, but I earnestly hope that you read this article in front of a game. If I can do my homework in front of the TV, you can read this article during the games too. However, given the time difference, I can’t write about March Madness because by the time you read, 80% of what I have said will have already been discredited (I get a little too ex-cited when picking upsets, it has yet to work out). So, I am going to toss out all of my thoughts on NFL free-agency so far instead. There are six different but related thoughts, designed so that you can read one at a time during commer-cial breaks of the non-stop action that is the NCAA Tournament. So without any further blabbering on by me (just kidding, the entire rest of the article is literally me blab-bering on, deal with it), here we go: 1. Watching the Super Bowl this year, the nation had one collective thought, that the Seahawks second-ary was good, too good. Yes, Mal-colm Smith was the MVP of the Super Bowl, but if they could give the award to a group of players, the “Legion of Boom” would be tak-ing a trip to Disney World together. The combination of Richard Sherman, Kam Chancellor, Earl Thomas and Byron Maxwell was too big, too strong, too physical and too talented for Peyton Man-ning to handle. And this was two weeks removed from Peyton hitting all of his receivers against the al-most non-existent Patriots second-ary as if he was still in warm-ups. So while other people are jeal-ous over someone else’s new car or house, I’m envious of the Sea-hawks secondary. You can’t blame me, though. I grew up watching the likes of Ty Law, Lawyer Milloy, Rodney Harrison, Asante Samuel, and others win three Super Bowls and do to Peyton Manning exact-ly what the Seahawks did to him. A dominant secondary and Super Bowls became the norm for ten year-old me. Then the philosophy changed away from the secondary and defense towards offense. Sure, in the coming years I got to watch high-powered, record-breaking of-fense which was great, don’t get me wrong. But on the fl ip side, I also was witness to years of Leigh Bod-den, Terrence Wheatley, Darius Butler, Patrick Chung, and others (if we’re being completely hon-est, I had to look a few of these names because I just called them all Leigh Bodden) who were more fa-mous for not seeing the ball in the air and running the receiver over than they were for anything else.

We all knew that the “Legion of Leigh Boddens” was the problem for the Patriots and a major part of the reason they could not seem to win that elusive fourth Super Bowl.

The solution? Apparently it was to draft more Leigh Boddens. The old “In Bill We Trust” mantra was los-ing credibility. Belichick has always been a value seeker and the value was not on the market for the price the Patriots were willing to pay. However, two things have changed this off-season. First of all, the sec-ondary proved how much help it really needed with a Pop Warner type effort against the Broncos re-ceivers. Secondly, there was fi nally unmistakable value on the market at defensive back. And with Aqib Talib leaving to go to the Broncos (watch out for Welker in practice is all I have to say about that) some sort of move was necessary and Bill certainly has not disappointed. With the Bucs trying to trade Darrelle Revis and his $16 million contract, Belichick sat back and waited for them to release Re-vis and then, he got the formerly selfi sh, money-oriented star de-fensive back to take a $4 million pay-cut. Revis leaving $4 million on the table for a coach he called a “jerk” just a few years ago? I will truly never know how Bill does it. A few days later, Ian Rapoport re-ported (say that fi ve times fast) that

the Patriots signed the big, physical, former Legion of Boom member and Pro Bowler Brandon Brown-er. Only to have Adam Schefter get mad that he didn’t break the

story and pull the old “no, it’s not a done deal yet—wait 24 hours—then report the story as your own.” In any case, it’s offi cial now and, in turn, the resurrection of the Patriots secondary is offi cial too. 2. These big off-season moves have come in the midst of the re-signing of wide receiver Julian Edelman and the signing of former Panthers’ wide receiver Brandon Lafell. Certainly, it has been an un-characteristically busy free-agency period for the Patriots. Edelman may not have the season he had last season (over 100 catches) because Brady should have more options, but returning Edelman is still huge as he is still the number one receiver and has experience with the system and Tom Brady especially. Unlike last season, it will be nice to return Brady’s favorite short-white target. Lafell, too, could develop into an-other favorite target of Brady’s. At 6’3”, 210 pounds, with good hands Lafell could become a reliable re-ceiver on third-down and in the red-zone—two situations in which the team can always improve in. 3. League-wide, free-agency has been as momentous as ever, centered around the arms race of

sorts between the Broncos and Pa-triots. For every action by one of the teams, there has been a quick and equal reaction by the other. The Broncos struck fi rst by

poaching Talib from the Pats and signing veteran defensive end De-Marcus Ware and safety T.J. Ward to bolster their defense. Soon af-

ter, the Patriots beefed up their de-fense as well by adding Revis and Browner (which I think we’ve cov-ered enough at this point). Then, the Patriots struck again with Edel-man and Lafell only to have the Broncos sign former Steeler wide receiver Emmanuel Sanders the same night. Although pre-season isn’t for months, I am already way too excited for football to be back. Heck, it feels as though the Bron-cos and Patriots are exchanging big plays in a game right now. Really, though, what both teams are do-ing now will have a huge impact come playoff time. It seems we are heading for an AFC Champi-onship rematch. Brady vs. Peyton again, would anyone be opposed to that? (Yes, I do actually realize the rest of the AFC may oppose to the fact that they won’t be play-ing in the AFC championship). 4. What’s next? Who knows? At this point, the Patriots have al-ready made plenty more big moves than anyone expected as have the Broncos. But who can blame them? Both teams were on the cusp of winning a Super Bowl already, but have a limited window with their all-time great, but aging, quarterbacks. 5. Both teams are all in and the balance of power in the NFL is suddenly becoming top-heavy. The good teams seem to be getting better while the bad teams are not improving. The NFL does value parity, but, at least, in free-agency so far, it seems to a “rich get richer and the poor get poorer” scenario. The NFL still manages to keep the league incredibly competi-tive which is impressive given the “LeBron Effect” if you will, which is the natural tendency for players to want to join the best teams to have the best shot at winning a championship. I will be interest-ed to see if the games will be any less competitive as a result of the off-season. I hope not, honest-ly, unless of course that means the Patriots are blowing every team out on the road to Arizona. 6. Despite the big moves made by both the Patriots and Broncos, the Seahawks are still the team to beat in the NFL. They are returning nearly everyone from their domi-nating Super Bowl win. And, as a young team, they are only improv-ing. So all roads to the Super Bowl go through Seattle (in a fi gurative sense; however in a literal sense approximately zero roads to Arizo-na go through Seattle). So far the Patriots have put themselves in the best possible position to challenge the Seahawks, but there is still a lot of football to be played and as we all know, truly anything can happen.

The Patriots may have lost Aqib Talib, but they have gained Darrelle Revis and Brandon Browner in the secondary.

Tom Brady has his favorite target back from last season as Julian Edel-man has re-signed with the Pats.